中秋节正是稻子成熟的时候。在中秋节农民们会祭拜土地神，土地神的生日就是这一天。很可能在古老传统上，中秋节即意味着秋天的到来。就一年中的季节而言，中秋节也被命名为“丰收节，”在这一天春天播种的庄稼得以收获。从古代开始，人们就会在中秋节喝酒，跳舞，唱歌，来庆祝丰收。这个场景能在《诗经》（古代中国最早的诗歌总集）找到。

The Mid-Autumn day is the very moment of rice maturity. And at that day farmers will worship the local God of land, whose birthday is exactly on that day. Mid-Autumn day is possibly an old tradition of telling the coming of autumn. In terms of the seasons in a year, the Mid-Autumn day can be named as "Harvest Day", when the crops sowed in the spring can be reaped. Since ancient times, people would drink, dance, and sing on that day, celebrating the harvest. This scene can be found in the Books of Odes (the earliest collection of poems in ancient China).

根据早期描述，古代的君王有着祭月的传统，但是这一天是在秋分，而不是中秋节。然而，每年秋分的日子都不同，在秋分不一定有圆月。因此，祭月被人们认可成中秋节上的一个习俗，中秋节就是月亮最圆的时候。

According to the previous descriptions, the ancient emperors had the tradition of worshiping the moon, yet the day was initially on the day of Autumn Equinox, and not on the Mid-Autumn day. However, the Autumn Equinox is not a fixed day and there may or may not be a full moon on that day. Therefore, the day for worshipping the moon was accepted as a convention on the Mid-Autumn day, when the moon is in its fullest.

同时，据科学研究证明，在秋天地球和太阳的倾斜角会加大，所以天空上空的凉爽空气会逐渐消失，而西北风仍然很弱。这样的话，湿气除掉了，天空中的空气也变得纯净，月亮看起来更大更圆。这会是赏月的最好时间。

Meanwhile, it's proven by scientific research that the inclination of the earth and the sun will gradually increase in autumn, thus the cool air up in the sky will fade away while the northwest wind is still very weak. In this way, the moisture is removed and the air in the sky would become pure and clean. So the moon would appear to be relatively fuller and bigger. And this would be the best time to appreciate the beauty of the moon.